Penn State students and researchers now have access to two key historical databases in the field of African-American history -- African American Periodicals, which contains more than 170 periodicals published between 1825 and 1995, and Afro-Americana Imprints, which contains books, pamphlets, and broadsides spanning more than 400 years of African-American history. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a consortium of which Penn State is a member institution, purchased these databases, and they are now accessible through the "Library Databases A-Z list."
These two chronicles of African-American history and culture have a tremendous impact on the ability to do scholarly research. According to Alexia Hudson-Ward, associate librarian at Penn State Abington, "Locating and using pre-Civil War era primary source materials for African-American studies is extraordinarily challenging. Many of the important items that provide a view of this history in totality (such as pro and con slavery periodicals and advertisements) are literally spread throughout the United States in various repositories, archives, and libraries. Having both of these databases is so valuable, and will reduce archival 'mining' time and allow for uncovering new historical insights for students, faculty and researchers."
In addition to these two databases, students also now have access to Nineteenth Century Collections Online. This resource is a set of archives arranged in modules that will be published over several years. The CIC purchased the first four modules encompassing more than 10 million pages whose topics include British Politics and Society, Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, European Literature, 1790-1840 and British Theatre, Music and Literature: High Popular Culture.
For more information, call (814) 863-4240.